Monday, October 31, 2011

MGM, headquartered in Los Angeles, was formed in 1924 by the merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Productions. During the following three decades the studio with “more stars than are in the heavens” dominated the movie business. Today MGM controls a library of about 4,100 films (including 15 that have won the Oscar® for Best Picture) and over 10,000 hours of television programming.

OVERALL GRADE: D

One of the biggest issues with MGM’s About Us pages is finding them. They’re buried under the link MGM Inc. in the tiny type at the foot of the Movies page (the home page). The Movies page gives no sense of how long the company’s been in business or what a wealth of great movies have been produced under its aegis – just a long, long list of movies that can be sorted by title or by category, but not by date or awards won.

Products/Services: C

The historical overview starts with a video that shows clips and stills from many of the great MGM movies. Mysteriously, the captions identify some but not all of these.

The text below the video is a decent overview of the company’s creation … but it’s illustrated with one and only one photo, a black-and-white pic of the studio’s headquarters. Why not have a timeline with important movies and TV shows, each with the same links to trailers and purchase info that the main Movies page offers? The point is not only to tell us about MGM, but to persuade us to purchase their products.

We’d also like to see all that gray space on the left and right put to better use. Bensi’s filled it with pictures of food; why doesn’t MGM fill it with movie and TV stills, as on the header to the Movies page? That blank filmstrip graphic at the top is a waste of space.

We cannot let pass the fact that minor grammatical errors in the history page subtly undermine the impression of high quality production that MGM presumably wants to convey. Of Midnight Cowboy, the page notes that “It was changed to an R-rating in 1971,” when the rating (rather than the movie) was changed. In the next paragraph there’s a simple typo, “THese” rather than “These.” And so on. As we said in our 9th Commandment of About Us pages, this sort of error is a “broken window” – it suggests the company is careless about details.

Personality: C

The Corporate Information page offers links to bios (not “bio’s”!) of MGM’s executives, but the bios are standard cookie-cutter summaries that don’t focus on what values drive the executives, and therefore the company. Stressing the number of MGM productions and the number of Academy Awards they’ve received would convey the company’s personality much more effectively.

Accessibility: E

Hello? Hello? Is anybody there?

Having an email list, a Facebook link, a Twitter feed, and a YouTube channel is not a substitute for offering an email address, a phone number, or a mailing address – none of which appear on MGM’s site.

TAKEAWAY

MGM has access to a breathtaking amount of great material spanning nearly a century: what a pity it’s not used more effectively!

Does your Web site’s “About Us” section accurately convey your organization’s history and capabilities? Every two weeks we evaluate one example, grading it in three areas that are key to potential customers: Personality (Who are you?), Products/Services (What can you do for us?), and Accessibility (How can we reach you?). Contact us if you’d like to have your site evaluated—there’s no charge and no obligation.

Today’s example was chosen at random; CorporateHistory.net has no ties to this company.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Blu Homes, a privately owned company founded in 2008, manufactures environmentally friendly steel-frame houses that are prefabricated in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, and unfolded on the building site. The average time from design to completion of the home is 3 to 4 months. We became aware of Blu Homes through an article in Forbes. Blu Homes’ About Us page is here.

OVERALL GRADE: A

The appearance of the site fits the product the company offers: uncluttered and efficient. We like the fact that the header of every page is a changing series of pictures of the company’s homes - a constant reminder of what the company is about.

Products/Services: A+

The main About Us page offers a summary of the company’s product and outlook. The video clip is below the text, hence clearly optional--we particularly appreciate that, since we have little patience for loading videos of unknown content and length. We would like to see some illustrations here that would clarify the technical talk: floor plans, a LEEDS certification logo, and/or a simple graphic of the house being unfolded.

At the top of the sub-menu on the About Us page is a link to the Fact Sheet, an excellent, laudably brief summary of the company: when it was founded, who owns it, its clients, residential uses, environmental concerns, locations, leadership team, board of directors, board of advisors. It would be helpful here to include links within the summary to individual members of the leadership team, the advisors, and house models.

The company’s FAQ page also offers much useful information. Although the current layout gives a clean look, we’d like an option to see all the questions and answers at once, rather than having to click on each one.

Personality: A

Under Leadership Team, we like the fact that each person’s page begins with work experience, then personalizes him or her with community activities, interests, a fun fact, and education. At the foot of each page is a video--again clearly optional--in which the person talks about his or her connection with the company and its products.

Accessibility: A

A contact link appears at the upper right of every page, and a more prominent contact button usually appears on the right sidebar. The Contact page is dominated by a form that gathers information from potential home buyers. For those with other queries, we’re happy to see an email link and a press contact.

TAKEAWAY

The About Us pages for Blu Homes provide all the basic information in easily navigable layouts whose look complements the company’s mission. Well done!

Does your Web site’s “About Us” section accurately convey your organization’s history and capabilities? Every two weeks we evaluate one example, grading it in three areas that are key to potential customers: Personality (Who are you?), Products/Services (What can you do for us?), and Accessibility (How can we reach you?). Contact us if you’d like to have your site evaluated—there’s no charge and no obligation.

Today’s example was chosen at random; CorporateHistory.net has no ties to this company.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

It isn't often that customers have the opportunity to shape a company's direction as strongly as has happened at Netflix.

"It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs," said an email from Netflix to customers this week. "This means no change: one website, one account, one password…in other words, no Qwikster."

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and Netflix stayed on course. It would have continued to hemorrhage customers otherwise. This episode will become a business history case study, right along with the withdrawal of Coca-Cola's "New Coke" and other pivotal points in corporate history.

I'm not convinced that the July price change was necessary, but I'm glad to hear "we are now done with price changes." If nothing else, the company is emerging as a stronger corporate communicator: the email also informed streaming-only customers like me that we now have hundreds of new movies and more than 3,500 TV episodes to choose from. I'll be happy with one new addition that's as good as "Doc Martin."

Monday, October 10, 2011

Luxury Air Jets, headquartered in Manhattan, provides private jet or executive jet charter services. The main About Us page is here.

OVERALL GRADE: C-

We have two minor objections to the site. The six clocks in the header cleverly give a sense that Luxury Air Jets can take you around the world -- but their presence makes the page load very slowly in some browsers. This is not a good first impression for a company providing fast transportation.

Also, when we print out pages, the text appears as an illegible pale gray. While not everyone will want to print pages, it’s wise to make minor adjustments for the sake of wealthy curmudgeons who do.

Products/Services: C

The About Us page has adequate information about the company’s services, but it would be more enticing if the second section (“Charter Jet Services”) appeared at the top, before the vague statements of the company’s ethics and donations to charity. This page would also be a perfect place to illustrate the interiors and exteriors of some of the jets the company supplies, with links to pages providing further details.

Personality: D

The About Us page is a pitch for the company’s services. We don’t object to that, but we do think that those who are purchasing such a high-end service might wonder how long the company has been in business, who runs it, and what its track record is in terms of distance traveled, safety, pilots’ qualifications, and so on.

The brusquely titled Letter from MGT repeats material from the main About Us page, with no clue who owns and operates the company. Who’s MGT? Apparently it’s an abbreviation for management. Silly. There’s plenty of space to spell out the word in the headline – or better yet, to have the letter come from a real, named person.

Accessibility: C

For those in a hurry (and what jet traveler is not?), the company’s phone number always appears at the upper right. A “Request a Quote” button appears on the sidebar of every page -- but it takes us to a long, online form that leaves us no record of what we’ve sent. The Contact Us page has a similar form, although at least there is an actual email address buried at the end of the page.

TAKEAWAY

Luxury Air Jets misses many opportunities to persuade visitors that the company provides luxurious, reliable, and safe transportation.

Does your Web site’s “About Us” section accurately convey your organization’s history and capabilities? Every two weeks we evaluate one example, grading it in three areas that are key to potential customers: Personality (Who are you?), Products/Services (What can you do for us?), and Accessibility (How can we reach you?). Contact us if you’d like to have your site evaluated—there’s no charge and no obligation.

Today’s example was chosen at random; CorporateHistory.net has no ties to this company.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Aaron "The West Wing" Sorkin, the perpetual poet laureate of the workplace drama, saves the day with his screenplay for "Moneyball" (co-scripted with Steven Zaillian). This baseball fan naturally laughed and cheered at the field scenes -- but also at the conference room confabs with the sour old Oakland A's scouts and at the inside looks at the locker room (hey, they're workplaces too).

Back in the early 1990s I was busy rooting for Robbie Alomar in Toronto, and thus knew little about Billy Beane and the Oakland A's. It's been fun to catch up on which parts of "Moneyball" are fictionalized, and which parts draw directly from Michael Lewis's book.

On Broadway, "Man and Boy" is the workplace drama of choice. The Terence Rattigan plot about a corrupt financier is surprisingly modern, though the father-son relationship is a bit creaky. Maybe I'm just seeing it through 21st-century US eyes. I never miss a chance to marvel at Frank Langella artfully chewing the scenery. He is the American Laurence Olivier.

CorporateHistory.net can help you turn your company history into an effective and beautiful book, DVD, Web site, keynote speech, or campaign. Whether you want to celebrate a company anniversary, honor a retiring CEO, or strategize your corporate storytelling, CorporateHistory.net can help. We believe organizations suffer when their memory erodes, just as people do. Your institutional memory is a stranded asset until you put it to work. Then it becomes a powerful, cost-effective tool for marketing, community relations, and employee pride.Please visit our website:http://www.corporatehistory.net/